9th International Workshop on Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia and Symposium on Advances in Multiple Myeloma Renaissance Hotel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands October 5-8, 2016

The 9th International Workshop for Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinemiaand Symposium on Advances in Multiple Myeloma was held on October 5th through October 8th, 2016 at the Koepelkerk at the Renaissance Hotel and Conference center in the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Onsite registration and check-in began at 12:00 on Wednesday, October 5th, preceding the 2pm start of the Symposium on the Advances in Multiple Myeloma, where there were 7 presentations and a panel discussion on the latest research in MM, concluding with a 6pm Welcome Reception on the Spinoza-Erazmus Balcony.

Overall, IWWM-9 included 15 sessions with 66 technical presentations including a Junior Investigator Poster presentation event with 6 short oral presentations, 53 WM and MM posters, a special lecture, Opening and Closing Ceremonies, a Speakers Reception, and two (2) Great Debate sessions inclusive.

The Opening Ceremonies were held on Thursday, October 6, from 7-10pm at the beautiful historic Westerkerk, directly across from the Ann Frank House and burial place of Rembrandt. Conference attendees were treated to dinner and welcomed by the conference chairs, Monique Minemma, MJ Kersten, and Steven Pals. There were addresses by Prince Bernhard van Oranje, Carl Harrington (IWMF), M. Alles (Celgene Corporation), C. Tapprich (Janssen Corporation), and Karen Lee Sobol (author of "Twelve Weeks"). There was a candle-lighting ceremony led by Lia van Ginneken (Netherlands), and a wonderful "live rendition" of the famous Rembrandt painting, "Night Watch". Plenary Awards were presented to Lian Xu, Marzia Varretoni, Rebecca Auer, Ruth de Tute, and Damien Roos-Weil. This year's Robert A. Kyle Award was presented to Zachary Hunter, Ph.D, whose groundbreaking research into CXCR4 and MYD88 has led to improvements in diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic initiatives for WM.

On Friday, October 7, the poster session was held from 5-6:30pm in the Den Haag/Amsterdam room at the Renaissance Hotel. 53 posters were presented, with the following 6 delegates selected for short oral presentations: Simone Ferrero, Lisa Maria Kaiser, Jorge Castillo, Xia Liu, Maria Louisa Guerrera and Eric Durot. Abstracts for these and all other session presentations are available for review on this website. Young Investigator Awards (YIA) were presented to Maria Louisa Guerrera, Simone Ferrero, Lisa Maria Kaiser, Eric Durot, Jalala Shahrzad, Constance Bar, Joshua Gustine, Aneel Paulus, Josephine Vos, Nickolas Tsakmaklis, and George Chen. Later that evening, a reception was held for all IWWM-9 speakers at the Museum Van Loon, where they enjoyed dinner and some history of Netherlands art, architecture, and culture.

Saturday, October 8 offered a 2-part Great Debate session: "What should be the frontline standard treatment for WM?", and "What should be the goal of therapy in 2017?". IWWM-9 used a different debate format than previous workshops, For this session, the presenters first made their cases, and then the floor was opened up for the delegates to question the presenters in a more "panel discussion" format. We hope this more "participatory" style will provide for more lively and wide-ranging debates. We review feedback forms, as we continually look for areas of improvement for this and other parts of the workshop.

The Closing Ceremonies were held the evening of October 8, from 6:60-11pm at the Scheepvaartmuseum, Kattenburgerplein (National Maritime Museum). After a museum tour the attendees enjoyed dinner. Keynote speakers were C.I. Edvard Smith (Sweden) and E. von Borcke (USA) who also received WM Discovery Awards. The Jan Gosta Waldenstrom Awards were presented to Ken Anderson and Roger Owen. The conference organizing staff was also recognized for their contributions to this event: Phil Brodsky, Doug Wolf, Greer Epstein, Ellen Patterson, Sara McKinnie, Lou Klepinger, Kathy Stone, Karen Lee Sobol, Robert Manning and Chris Patterson. As the IWWM-9 organizers bid farewell, IWWM-10 was introduced by Lia Palomba in a colorful multi-media presentation. Robert Kyle then offered the closing remarks, thus wrapping up the official proceedings of IWWM-9.

The 2016 IWWM-9 was our most comprehensive meeting to date, and we expect future workshops to continue its ideology to build on this progress. These meetings reflect the continued growth in investigators working on the genetic basis, pathogenesis, and clinical treatments of WM. Since the IWWM began in 2000, the number of international participating investigators has steadily grown as have the number of WM related publications including those created and developed from the IWWM Workshops. Such publications have been the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Clinical Lymphoma Myeloma, Haematologica, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Seminars of Oncology.

The IWWM will continue its research and investigations into these hematologic malignancies and to provide debates, discussions, and collaborations on the ongoing current research, and enrich each attendee’s understanding of Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia and help foster discoveries leading to more effective treatments and ultimately, a cure.